


we walk the line

by RMarie124



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, During Canon, Eivor is perpetually injured, F/F, Pre-Canon, Randvi tends to her, it's like...they want to do it but they can't, lots of mutual pining, smut but it's not really smut, spoilers for the sciropescire arc, which I will forever be upset about btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 18:53:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30093558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RMarie124/pseuds/RMarie124
Summary: “Randvi.” Eivor spoke softly, and her breath was nearly stolen from her when Randvi looked at her with the most open expression she’d seen from her. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Thank you. For always tending to me.”Randvi leaned closer with a conspiratorial smile. “Only taking care of our prized drengr.”Or: Eivor is always sporting injuries that Randvi tends to.
Relationships: Eivor/Randvi (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 117





	we walk the line

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, after taking on another writing project that had nothing to do with fanfics, and with senior spring picking up and lowkey kind of kicking my ass, I'm back writing fics about my current favorites. I kind wish I could've written another scene, but alas I haven't gotten further than the Sciropescire arc and thus am very very hazy on the details of the end of the storyline. *sighs in when will I ever get to finish this game.* Also, I looked up the date range of the storyline and it said it's like 872-878, so I just eyeballed the dates. The first one is definitely pre-canon, but I guessed on the year for the Sciropescire part. Still forever sad about Ceolbert tbh :( 
> 
> Anyway, I had so much fun writing this, it was a nice break from literally everything. 
> 
> Title is a changed form of Halsey's cover of "I Walk the Line," which I definitely listened to more than once when writing the second half of this.

Fornburg, 871

Eivor trudged up the hill towards the longhouse, ignoring the pain in her left hip and right shoulder as she walked. Hours on the longship had allowed a stiffness to settle in her bones, one that she tried to shake off as she moved, to no avail. This last raid had certainly done a number on her.

As the longhouse came into view, Eivor was relieved to see the very person she was looking for: Randvi. It seemed that Randvi had been looking for her as well, for as she caught sight of her, Eivor watched as her hands came to rest on her hips, and a furrow etched itself into her brow.

“And what’s happened to you this time, Wolf-Kissed?” Her voice rang out, exasperated with a tone of affection.

Eivor felt herself grin despite the pain. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“From the looks of that limp, I’d beg to differ.” Randvi gave her a look that sent an unwanted shiver down her spine. “You know what comes next, now, surely?”

Eivor started to make a noise of protest, but at Randvi’s stern look, she acquiesced. When it came down to it, she could never truly deny Randvi.

She diverted her path to the bath house, peeling her armor off with difficulty after arriving, wincing as her bad shoulder throbbed. She eased herself down on the bench, sighing in relief as the steam started to seep through to her bones. The door clicked open and then closed, and Eivor didn’t have to open her eyes to know that it was Randvi. She always brought an aura with her, calm and serene. Eivor could have sworn that she heard a sigh that sounded almost wistful, but forced herself to ignore it. She always forced down the small bits of hope that worked their way to the surface in these moments alone with Randvi.

Randvi sat down next to her and Eivor opened an eye and found Randvi raking her eyes over her body, inspecting the injuries. Her eyes caught on the bruise blossoming along her left hip, a nasty one, and looking at the various new cuts that littered her body.

“Anything hurt that I can’t see?” Randvi asked, reaching into the small bag of wound care supplies that she had with her.

Eivor considered lying, but the dull throb in her shoulder told her not to. “My right shoulder. I deflected almost too late and caught it at a strange angle.”

Randvi tsked and her fingers prodded gently at the area Eivor had spoken of. She screwed her eyes shut and bit back a cry of pain, but in its stead came a whimper. She tried to even her breathing as the pain subsided, and knew that Randvi was giving her a disapproving look.

“You’ll have to speak to Valka about that.” Randvi muttered. “Sometimes, Eivor, I swear it’s like you injure yourself like this on purpose. If you want to see me, all you have to do is ask.”

Eivor chuckled and cracked one of her eyes open to watch as Randvi began tending to her other wounds. “We see each other outside of you tending to my wounds, Randvi.”

Randvi frowned and began rubbing salve on the bruise that decorated Eivor’s thigh. She hissed at the tender flesh being pressed against, but couldn’t fault the soft hands causing her distress. If only she could feel what they felt like on her non-bruised skin, not cleaning up cuts and scrapes. What they would feel like skimming up the inside of her thigh and—

Eivor sucked in a breath and stopped the line of thought before it truly took a life of its own.

“…hardly the situation for us to _actually_ speak to one another and—are you even listening to me right now?” Randvi’s tone was teasing.

Her hand slipped beneath the cloth wrapped around her hip and Eivor held back an undignified noise as the fantasy persisted in her mind. “Apologies, Randvi.” She ground out. “The bruise is more bothersome than I had thought. It took my mind away momentarily.”

Eivor caught Randvi’s gaze as her hand slipped from the cloth and up her side. There was something in Randvi’s gaze, Eivor saw, something guarded, but familiar. The steam of the bath house suddenly felt oppressive, as if the tension that had emerged had suddenly become overbearing.

“Well, I’ll simply have to keep looking after it then, won’t I?” Randvi seemed almost breathless, and Eivor’s skin burned where her hand was splayed on her skin.

It was all Eivor could do to nod. She didn’t trust herself not to say something that would shatter the delicate balance they had of push and pull. Randvi’s expression had her paralyzed, and not for the first time that they’d been like this, Eivor wanted nothing more than to lean in and kiss her, to curl her fingers into her hair that _had_ to be as soft as it looked.

For now, though, it would have to be enough to be tended to like this. As if the way Randvi touched her while tending to her wounds was something _more_ than it could ever be. Eivor could live with that until she reached Valhalla.

She had to.

So, the next day she found herself in the same position as she had the day before. Her shoulder was bandaged now, a salve that burned and felt cold all at once seeping into her skin. Her armor was off, she was stripped down to her wraps, and Randvi was sitting beside her, checking over her wounds.

It felt so clandestine, so deliciously fresh and new. Part of Eivor was convinced that Randvi somehow knew of her affections and was toying with her, but the other part screamed at her to accept the way that Randvi often looked at her. The way she was so willing to tend to her, the way they spoke easily outside of the bath house and how well they worked together.

Randvi’s hand on her hip pulled her to the present and she jumped only slightly. Randvi let out a small, but no less bright, laugh.

“Peace, Eivor. I do not intend to hurt you.” Her tone and expression were teasing, and they made Eivor’s stomach flip. “This bruise must still be tender.”

“Indeed.” Eivor tried to smile easily, but she could only focus on the way Randvi’s hand had slipped below the waistband of her wraps. “I did fall quite a ways to get it.”

Randvi hummed, and continued rubbing salve on the bruise. Eivor watched the way Randvi’s gaze was fixed singularly on her task, her hand moving slower than was probably proper, but Eivor didn’t care. If this is what she could get of Randvi touching her, she would take it. Anyone else would have made her do it herself, but Randvi was always right there to take care of her.

“Randvi.” Eivor spoke softly, and her breath was nearly stolen from her when Randvi looked at her with the most open expression she’d seen from her. She was closer than Eivor expected, too, and her eyes darted unconsciously to Randvi’s lips. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Thank you. For always tending to me.”

And with her hand down Eivor’s waistband, resting lightly on the bruise, Randvi leaned closer with a conspiratorial smile. “Only taking care of our prized drengr.”

Eivor swore she would die, then and there. She wished, selfishly, that Randvi would slide her hand down between her legs to find how much desire she inspired. In a bold move, Eivor turned her head so her cheek was pressed against Randvi’s. She prayed to the Gods her words would not shatter the moment.

“And who takes care of you?” She whispered.

Randvi’s fingers curled lightly and Eivor swallowed a hiss at the twinge from the bruise. She was worried that she had misspoken, and was getting ready to pull away when Randvi spoke, her reply equally as quiet as Eivor’s.

“Are you offering?”

“Yes.” Eivor breathed, her heart thudding in her chest. 

“Then I shall be set for the rest of my life, won’t I?” Randvi mused, and Eivor could’ve sworn her lips brushed against the underside of her jaw before she pulled away.

Before Eivor could say anything more, Randvi was dressed and slipping out of the door.

———

England, 876

Randvi heard the commotion of Eivor’s arrival all the way from the docks. She felt worry clench in her chest, the small scrap of paper with hasty writing on it still resting on her table.

_Sciropescire is ours. I question how much more I can take._

The message had scared her. Eivor rarely ever voiced her frustration, her worry, or truly any emotion for that matter. It made her dread the re-telling of the events in Sciropescire. Whatever had happened must have torn Eivor down to a new level for her to have voiced her displeasure.

“ _Eivor!_ ” Voices called after the drengr, and Randvi heard her gruff reply echo through the longhouse, the sound reverberating in her mind.

“Not now.” Randvi looked to see that Eivor’s eyes were trained singularly on her. “I must tend to business.”

Eivor all but stalked to the alliance room, and Randvi had the sudden feeling like she was the prey, that somehow she was being hunted by Eivor. The intense gaze, the near snarl of her lips, the way her fingers twitched with every step, as though they wanted nothing more than to take the axe by her side and bury it deep inside the nearest target. Her voice died in her throat, the sight and feeling of the power Eivor radiating rendering her nearly breathless.

Randvi watched as, with trembling fingers, Eivor pulled the dagger from the spot in the alliance map. It was only then, as Randvi moved a raven pawn to cover Sciropescire on the map that she truly got a good look at Eivor’s face.

It looked like she had been to Helheim and back, a bruise blossoming on her jaw, a split lip, and bruised knuckles. Gods only knew what kind of injuries she was sporting underneath her armor. Eivor tilted her head to the side, her hand adjusting the grip on the knife, and Randvi caught sight of another bruise attached to the end of a cut peeking out from the neckline of her cape.

“Ceolbert is dead.”

Randvi felt the world tilt. She could not have heard that correctly. “What?”

“Ceolbert. He’s dead.” Eivor’s free hand flexed at her side.

“How can this be?” Randvi swallowed the tears that threatened in the back of her throat. She could not allow herself to react to severely now, as Eivor looked as though she was coiled tighter than a snake and could snap at any moment.

“Ivarr the _fucking_ Boneless, the Gods damned _coward_.” Eivor lashed out, turning and throwing the knife for emphasis with such force that it embedded itself deeply in the wall of the longhouse. Randvi felt her heart jump into her throat. “He killed Ceolbert just to frame Rhodri. He probably liked it, too, the fucking bacaraut.”

“And did you—”

“Kill him?” Eivor finished. She scoffed. “Of course I did.”

“And you denied him his axe, I’m sure?” Randvi felt her anger rising despite herself, rising to the fury that was seeping from Eivor.

Eivor nodded, a frown gracing her features. “He doesn’t deserve Valhalla. And I don’t care if I’ve denied myself the same by doing so. I can only hope Ceolbert’s God welcomed him home. He didn’t deserve this.” Her voice broke. “He didn’t need to learn the cruelties of the world this way.”

“No, he did not.” Randvi agreed.

Eivor placed both her hands on the table and hung her head with a sigh. When she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “I am so tired, Randvi. This nearly broke me. Sometimes I dream of leaving. Going back to Vinland. Or simply leaving to wander the country. You have enough alliances to survive without me.”

“Those alliances are to you, and you know it.” Randvi countered.

Eivor pushed back from the table, scoffed, and crossed her arms. “They are to Sigurd and our clan. I simply assured their success. Played puppet, just as I am supposed to do.”

Randvi felt a surge of frustration swell in her and she stepped forward into Eivor’s space, grasping her jaw in her hand, forcing their eyes to meet. She saw the wince as she touched the bruise on Eivor’s cheek but she cared only distantly. If Eivor wanted to communicate with pain, then so be it.

“You look at me, Wolf-kissed.” She all but growled. “ _You_ are the one they listen to. I may be jarlskona, but _you_ are the one they turn to. The one they obey. This clan would fall to pieces without you!”

Eivor’s jaw tensed under her fingers and just for a moment, Randvi wondered what it would feel like to curl her hand around Eivor’s throat, to watch what the drengr would do. Would she submit, or would she give as good as she got?

Eivor’s eyes flashed with anger and heat, as though she’d been thinking the same thing as Randvi had. Her hand came up to grab Randvi’s wrist and pull it from her face. “I am _not_ the leader of this clan, Randvi. I am but a drengr.”

Randvi scoffed, ignoring the spike of heat that arose from the way Eivor’s voice curled around the syllables of her name. “You’re more than that, and you know it.”

Eivor’s eyes wavered from hers, and Randvi moved to catch her gaze again. She would not let Eivor go, not until she knew that she was more. That she knew she was supported, and would one day wake up and Ceolbert’s loss would hurt less.

“You will let me patch up your wounds. If you must feel something, let it be someone taking care of you.” Randvi kept her voice steady, yet the malice had dropped from it.

They stared each other down for a handful of moments, Randvi’s heart beating nearly out of her chest. She felt worry, desire, and impatience all in one and it had her on edge, but she didn’t let her gaze waiver from Eivor’s. Finally, the warrior conceded with a sigh. She released her trip from Randvi’s wrist, and she felt the loss acutely, letting her arms hang at her sides. Randvi watched as Eivor turned to leave, her shoulders hunched almost imperceptibly.

Randvi forced herself to keep her eyes on Eivor’s form as it left the longhouse. Once she was gone, Randvi tilted her head back and inhaled a sharp breath, squeezing her eyes shut. She allowed her mind to balance before making the short walk to Valka’s hut.

A short time later, Randvi opened the door to the bath-house to find Eivor already leaned back against the back wall, her eyes closed and her armor removed. She took the time to survey the damage on the rest of Eivor’s body, cataloguing each new bruise and each cut that would scar. The cut she’d seen peeking out from underneath Eivor’s cape extended from the base of her neck to just below her collar bone. There was a bruise on her ribs, and the faint outline of fingerprints on her forearm.

“You barred the door shut.” Eivor remarked, and Randvi was pulled to the present again, frowning as she’d momentarily forgotten about it. “Trying to keep me from leaving?”

Randvi laughed and shed the outer layers of her clothing before pouring water on the hot rocks. “More like keeping the others out, and you know it, Eivor.”

Steam rose into the air and Eivor let out a sigh that seemed to release something from her. She was still wound tight, though, Randvi knew. She could see it in the way that Eivor’s leg was bouncing, in the way she was worrying on her bottom lip, in the slight furrow of her brow.

Randvi stood in front of Eivor, who finally opened her eyes. She felt her breath catch in her throat at the way Eivor was looking at her. Her eyes were hooded, her expression far away yet right there in the moment. She knew the look well, recognized it the moment Eivor’s gaze dropped to her lips. Battle lust mixed with the desire to forget. Though it had been too long since Randvi had felt battle lust, she was intimately familiar with the desire to forget.

It was a bad idea, she knew, but she was still inwardly reeling from the news that Eivor had brought. Randvi needed this just as badly as Eivor did. It was no secret to either of them how the other felt, there was simply the understanding that certain lines couldn’t be crossed. Not yet.

But they could be toyed with and bent.

Randvi reached out to take Eivor’s jaw in her hand again, her grip lighter this time. She watched as Eivor’s gaze focused and locked onto hers. She brushed her thumb slowly over Eivor’s bottom lip, stopping it just beside the place where it was split.

“Perhaps I should tend to this first.” She whispered.

Eivor’s tongue darted out, perhaps subconsciously, but it caught Randvi’s thumb and her heart stopped in her chest. She could see the way Eivor’s breathing quickened, and she knew her own breathing matched. She noticed the way Eivor’s mouth stayed slightly open, as if in tentative invitation. It was intoxicating, wielding this power over Eivor, being _allowed_ to wield this power. So she pressed her thumb forward and watched, transfixed, as Eivor pulled it between her teeth and bit gently. Then, she released it and placed a kiss against the pad of her thumb.

Randvi reached over, with a shaking hand, to the supplies Valka had lent her. She took a cloth and dipped it into the wound cleaning solution.

“This will sting.” She did not try to hide the way her voice wavered.

Eivor huffed out a laugh. “Not when I have you to look upon.”

Randvi noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that Eivor’s eyes were not watching her face as she cleaned the wound on her lip. She all but felt the track her eyes took along her body, feeling each phantom touch floating across her skin.

“Much better.” Randvi murmured, brushing her thumb over Eivor’s lip one more time before tilting her jaw to the side. She ghosted her lips over the bruise. “This one I must leave to heal on its own, but this one,” She knelt before Eivor, tracing the outline of the cut on her neck. “I can help.”

Eivor leaned forward, and Randvi had to fight to keep her eyes on the wound. She reached for the cloth, and felt Eivor’s hand come under her chin to tilt her gaze up. There was heat in Eivor’s eyes.

“If I may look at you, _jarlskona_ ,” Eivor mused, “Then you may look at me.”

Randvi nodded, ignoring the ever persistent desire that spiked at the use of her title. She reached forward, tracing the line of Eivor’s collar bone from its outer edge to the inner edge, following the line down her sternum to just before it dipped below her chest wrap. Then, in a move that felt somehow more bold than everything else she’d already done, Randvi leaned in to kiss the skin just beside the top of the wound at Eivor’s neck. Her answering hitch of breath spurred Randvi on to place one more lingering kiss in the same spot, before leaning back to bring the cloth up to clean the blood away.

While she worked, Randvi glanced up to see that Eivor’s eyes had slipped shut, and that her bottom lip was pulled between her teeth. When she finished, she ran her hand across Eivor’s ribs, brushing lightly across the bruise that had formed. She watched, fascinated, as the muscles in Eivor’s stomach tensed. Randvi leaned down and placed a kiss on the bruise, holding back a grin at the poorly hidden whimper that came from Eivor’s throat. She placed more kisses on the bruise, before moving to the other side of Eivor’s stomach to place kisses there too.

“If I may touch you like this, _drengr_ ,” Randvi murmured against Eivor’s skin, throwing her words right back to her. “Then you may touch me too.”

A strangled noise made its way from Eivor’s throat and Randvi felt a hand brush her cheek, while Eivor’s other hand traced her shoulder down her back. Her hand tangled in her braid, and Randvi gasped when Eivor tugged lightly, pulling her to look into her eyes. Eivor leaned down so that their lips were nearly touching, and Randvi’s heart leapt to her throat.

“I want nothing more than to kiss you, Randvi.” Eivor said, her voice dangerously low, clouded with lust. “To feel how it would be to be touched by you. But we must stay at this line, bending it as we see fit.”

Randvi was dizzy with want, digging her nails into Eivor’s thighs to prevent herself from surging forward. “We have bent it nearly to its breaking point today.”

“We have.” Eivor pulled away and Randvi closed her eyes at the loss. “I would be lying if I said that I didn’t need it, though.”

Randvi nodded and uncurled her fingers. She saw the half-moon shapes she’d left in Eivor’s thighs, and without thinking, she leaned down to kiss both patches of skin. Eivor did not hide a moan this time, and Randvi wished she could place kisses higher on her thighs, to give Eivor the pleasure she so clearly desired and deserved.

“Randvi, _please_.” She sounded strained, and Randvi felt a surge of pride. “Before I lose the last thread of my self control.”

Randvi lingered, looking Eivor over one more time. “I feel quite the same.” She stood and packed away her supplies before leaning down once more to speak in Eivor’s ear. “Think of me tonight. Whether it’s your own hand or someone else’s.”

Eivor groaned, and her hand flew up to grip the back of Randvi’s head. She placed hot, open mouthed kisses on Randvi’s neck, nipping lightly at the flesh. Randvi gasped, placing a steading hand on Eivor’s shoulder.

“Only if you think of me.” Eivor’s voice was rough with desire, and Randvi wished so desperately that she could be the one in Eivor’s bed that night.

With all of her strength, Randvi pulled back and stepped away, pulling her clothing back on. She locked eyes with Eivor just before leaving.

“I never think of anyone else.”


End file.
